Jalen Smereck and the Ukrainian Hockey League club he played for, HC Donbass, have reached a “mutual agreement” to terminate his contract, according to a statement released by the team on Sunday.
In its release, the club thanked Smereck for his tenure and wished him “good luck in his future career.” No public comment has been made on the decision by Smereck at this time.
The termination comes less than a month after Smereck was subjected to a racist gesture by an opposing player, Andrei Denyskin, which incited outrage from across the hockey community and a reckoning with how the sport handles racism.
In a decision that was widely and swiftly condemned for being too lenient, the Ice Hockey Federation of Ukraine suspended Denyskin for three games, a mandatory suspension for receiving a match penalty, as well as a 10-game ban — the maximum allowable under the Federation’s rules — for when a player uses gestures or expressions “related to racial discrimination.”
One day before the Federation announced its decision, Smereck posted on Instagram saying he would “not play another game in the [Ukrainian Hockey League] until Andrey Denyskin is suspended and removed from the league.”
The incident itself occurred in the second period of a Sept. 26 game between Donbass and Denyskin’s club, HC Kremenchuk. During a stoppage in play, Denyskin shouted at Smereck and then mimed unpeeling a banana and eating it. He was ejected from the game for doing so.
Video of the incident did not capture what preceded it but, when speaking with Greg Wyshynski of ESPN, Smereck dispelled rumours there had been an altercation between him and Denyskin. Instead, Smereck recalled a scrum taking place between one of his teammates and Denyskin, who was “on top of him” and “threw four or five punches while [Smereck’s teammate] was on the ground.” When Smereck tried to intervene, he said, one of his teammates and a linesman grabbed him.
“I don’t know if [Denyskin] understood what I said,” Smereck told Wyshynski. “I don’t know if he speaks English. It was just me telling him to fight me. And then he responded with that.”
Denyskin later addressed what happened on Instagram, saying it was “a gesture that someone can consider as an insult in race” that he made after his emotions got the best of him. Denyskin went on to claim he respects “all people regardless of race or nationality.” Denyskin has since deleted the post.
Further disciplinary action against Denyskin can still be taken by the IIHF, which publicly condemned his racist gesture, calling it “a direct assault on the ideals and values of our game” while committing to investigate the incident further. It remains unclear at this time what the nature of that punishment might be.
“There is no place for such a blatantly racist and unsportsmanlike gesture in our sport and in society,” Luc Tardif, president of the IIHF, said in a statement after video of the incident surfaced. “We will ensure that all necessary ethics violation investigations occur to ensure that this behaviour is sanctioned appropriately.”
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